Yesterday the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a further funding programme for rural broadband. This is designed to take faster internet connections deeper into the “difficult to reach” parts of the countryside.
There are two notable things about the proposed strategy here. The first is that it is based on what is called “full-fibre”. That means fibre optic cable right into the premises, not, as has mainly been the case to date, running fibre to street cabinets and then relying on the ancient copper cables to take the signal the rest of the way. This can be for miles in some rural areas, and the signal degrades over copper, whereas it doesn’t over fibre. Some of us have been calling for a “full-fibre” strategy for years, and, at last the Government has caught up with this, but only after wasting millions of pounds on propping up the antiquated copper telephone network.
The second notable element is that the new strategy is based around connecting up public sector buildings, especially schools, to the fibre network, and then connecting up the remainder of the community from there.
In 2011, redoubtable broadband activist Lindsey Annison had a plan identical to this to connect up the community of Warcop in Cumbria. Below are some videos I took on the Fibre Walk she led over the proposed cable-laying route. This plan could not be implemented because we were told that it was not feasible for schools to share the connections with non-educational sites. That policy has now been over-turned, but only 7 years later. How much time and money has been expended in pursuing temporary solutions till now?
It is good to be proved right, but why does it have to take so long?
A couple of weeks ago I was working at a fabulous, inspirational event, the World Health Innovation Summit Fylde Coast (#WHISFC18) held at the Winter Gardens (above) in Blackpool. If you are not familiar with the umbrella body, the World Health Innovation Summit, check it out here, but, in summary, it is a rapidly growing movement of healthcare professionals and patients dedicated to putting people in control of improving their own health.
This is the first of a series of blog posts stimulated by the people I met and the initiatives I learned about at #WHISFC18.
Professor Niall Hayes is Professor of Information and Organisation at the University of Lancaster. As I was interviewing him for the video below, I became increasingly excited about what he was saying, as I recognised how it accorded with my own interests and ambitions. As part of an EU-funded project, Niall and colleagues have been developing an app called Mobile Age which aims to overcome social isolation among older people in rural South Cumbria. Here Niall talks about the principles behind this work.
I chatted further with Niall over lunch, and then he started to demonstrate the app, so I whipped out my camera and captured his explanation (see video below).
Mobile Age is a social connectedness app. It has been co-created with older residents of South Cumbria. At its core is open data about local events which people can use to plan their itinerary and ensure they can get out and about. It encompasses the ability to add events to a calendar as older people often enjoy constructing an agenda for the week and planning ahead.
Critical to the function of the app is an age-friendly map. This has been designed with clear lines which are more visible than some other mapping systems. The map shows benches, toilets (including available toilets within shops) and bus stops. This allows detailed journey planning to take place, including the ability to plan how to get to and from a venue before darkness falls.
Volunteering and educational opportunities are included, as well as links to vital services.
One of the key elements is the personal profile which allows the settings and itineraries to be saved. It also allows someone working remotely to add items into the profile, meaning that someone more tech savvy who is located distant from the user can help them populate their profile and plan their calendar.
I think this is a great initiative which deserves to be used more widely and replicated for use elsewhere. It epitomises my view that technology can be used to bring people together and to help them interact in the physical world, and that it is in no way de-personalising.
Added on 18th July 2018:
In the past couple of weeks I have done some work with the Mobile Age team undertaking video interviews to contribute to the evaluation of the programme.
Also, here is a great explanation of the approach given as part of a news item by ITV Border
I’ve been championing live video streaming since I first starting playing with the late, lamented, Qik app in about 2009. I first used it on a BlackBerry, believe it or not, and then moved on to applying it on a Nokia N95 the phone that had remarkably advanced video capabilities for its time and type. I first live-streamed an event professionally in September 2010, and I have gone on to make a specialism of doing good quality, low cost, live-streaming, mainly for non-profit organisations.
I have done this at the lowest possible cost, which has involved using free (or almost free) apps, and budget equipment.
Last week I had enormous fun live streaming the Academic Archers 2018 Conference from the British Library in London. This was a truly joyous event, in which academics with an interest in The Archers long-running radio programme came together to present the results of their research into aspects of the programme. If this sounds a bit dry to you, check out the laughter quotient on my summary video of proceedings.
And I was very pleased, and a little bit proud, that the BBC, both from the Archers twitter account, and from its website was happy to promote and link to my live stream of the event. I started out doing this as cheaply and efficiently as possible, and it is gratifying that a major broadcasting organisation feels my content is of sufficiently quality to be recommended.
If I can help you live-stream an event, and / or provide a cost-effective quality recording. Then please get in touch. The section of the live-stream linked from the BBC website features Charlotte Martin who plays Susan Carter in the programme. I present it below.
So, yesterday was the Digital Flu clinic at Seascale Health Centre, in West Cumbria. 392 people came through the centre during the day to get their annual flu jabs. 40 of these signed up to access their health records online for the first time, and 20 or so of them came to see me to get advice on their digital lives.
And there is the rub, and it’s why we were doing this really. Getting nearly 400 people in one place on one day is a rare opportunity in such a sparsely populated part of the country. The fact that such a small proportion of them wanted advice on digital issues shows the scale of the challenge. And it was not because they were sorted for that kind of thing. I engaged a lot of people in conversation about use of the internet. The vast majority of them said things like “I don’t do the internet”, or “I am not interested in that kind of thing”. They were mainly older people, and most of them live in areas where both landline and mobile signals are poor. This is a combination of factors which combines to produce a lack of awareness of the benefits of being online. And, in the cases where connectivity is poor, even if they are willing, they probably won’t be able to pursue their interest.
But, we always knew this was not going to be easy. This event is the start of a process. The surgery wants to interact with people online, to help people manage their health through apps and online processes, and to cut down social isolation by connecting people together. I also met with Councillor Keith Hitchen who talked about the frustrations of carers having to travel long distances to meet and attend events. The traveling cuts into the respite time they have, and they often have to miss large parts of events because of the time it takes to get to and from the venue. Online events and other interactions would be so valuable in these instances.
So, there are a number of strands we will be pursuing in the coming weeks, including looking at ways of tackling connectivity issues, working out the most cost-effective ways of ensuring that people can get independent advice on their digital needs, and working with local organisations to upskill them in areas such as video-conferencing and streaming meetings.
I’ll leave the last word to the couple I talked to about their use of FaceTime. “Do you use it to talk to family abroad?” I asked them. “Yes, only last night we used it to see our newly-born 6th grandchild in Toronto” they said. Don’t you dare try to tell me (or them) that new technologies are de-humanising.
Today I had a long Skype chat with Karen Adams of Express Telephony. You may recall that, a couple of years ago I did some work with the company on its social media strategy. Two years on, they continue to to deliver a great service to their customers despite the limitations of the inadequate telecoms infrastructure which continues to hold them, and the rest of the country back.
Karen told me that her husband and business partner, Martin, is off to Cornwall shortly to set up the home of a company director with the tools she needs to manage her London-based company remotely. I am intending to work with them to develop a case study of this project as it demonstrates the increasing reality that, in the age of the internet, location is no longer important to how you do business.
It is frustrating, however, that the country still lacks the infrastructure to realise the full potential of such modern possibilities.
As part of the brilliant HouseParty event, organised by Matt Leach of HACT and Esther Foreman of the Social Change Agency, I recently live streamed the second Housing Question Time. During the discussion, Nick Atkin, Chief Executive of Halton Housing Trust said something I have heard him say before, namely that social housing providers should be very worried about how they are going to collect the rents which currently go directly from Government to landlord when these payments are rolled into Universal Credit and made to the tenant not to the housing provider. See Nick say this below:
Nick points out that 75% of social housing landlords’ income is thus potentially at risk, and that, unless landlords find ways of ensuring that their tenants can transact with them online, they will have to employ a lot more staff to collect rents.
This is a key reason why Halton has been at the forefront of both shifting its transactions online and encouraging the digital inclusion of its tenants through its Digital First initiative. Here is the archive of the live streamed video from one of the Digital First open sessions http://tmblr.co/Z7HaYy1S5WHo7.
Digital Inclusion Strategy
I am often asked for what I think should be the key elements of a Digital Inclusion strategy. My first answer to this is that, although the end game of digital inclusion is to ensure tenants are able to transact online with their landlord, as well as claiming benefits and seeking work online, that should never be the route into the online world. If it is, they will see the internet as a chore not a benefit to their lives. My approach is very much to demonstrate that the internet brings a lot of joy and increased human interaction into people’s lives, and that those who are not online are missing out.
Social Media
The first element of any digital inclusion strategy should be for the organisation itself to be active and effective on social media. I often ask why organisations expect their customers to do digital when they don’t do it themselves. A good social media presence on the part of the organisation gives their customers reasons to be online, to keep in touch with what is going on around them. And if that social media strategy includes (as it should) online coverage of community and social events, people will want to join in, share your content with their friends, and get active in the social media sphere themselves.
Digital Champions
A lot of organisations make the mistake of making digital inclusion the responsibility of a small group of staff in a dedicated unit. The biggest potential digital inclusion resource any organisation has is its staff, in particular the staff who have day-to-day contact with tenants and residents. One of the big issues I come across is that sometimes frontline staff can act as a barrier to digital inclusion as they are not comfortable with digital tools themselves, so they are fearful of the implications of letting the people they work with loose on them. Thus (as I outlined here) it is essential that frontline staff are both enthusiastic about digital tools themselves and imbued with a passion to pass their skills and interest on to others.
Of course, staff are not the only potential digital champions, and it is vital that tenants / customers are included in these efforts. The great benefit of enrolling tenants as digital champions is that they can act as informal support networks for their neighbours. It also breaks through that “this is not for the likes of me” barrier.
Connectivity
Much digital inclusion activity falls at the hurdle of connectivity. Having a telephone landline can be a minority status in some social housing areas, and, although increasing numbers of tenants access the internet via mobile devices, many don’t have smartphones, and many of those who do run them on Pay-as-you-Go deals which can have minimal or no data allowances. There are some deals which offer cheap, basic broadband connections, but these can still be out of the reach of some tenants, and, of course, they usually rely on the property having a landline connection. Increasing numbers of landlords are implementing free or cheap wifi networks which can blanket areas with coverage and offer access at home as well as on the move. This is being recognised as a vital tool in the drive to increase online transactions.
Devices
Halton Housing is one organisation which has been experimenting with giving devices to tenants, on condition that they use them to conduct transactions with the landlord rather than face-to-face or telephone contacts. They have researched which cheap Android tablets work most effectively and have concluded that it is cost-effective to give away the tablets with the cost being more than met in savings on transaction costs. There is growing evidence that tablets are the device of choice, particularly for people who have never used a computer. There are other sources of low cost IT equipment, particularly recycled computers, which can be an important resource for digital inclusion.
Particularly when working with older people, I have found that the more you can present the internet through familiar equipment, the more likely it is to be accepted. A low-cost tablet connected to a TV via a device such as a Chromecast (which only costs £30) can help them explore the online world in a familiar environment.
Normalising the Internet
Walk into any city or town centre cafe or coffee shop and you will commonly see people tapping away at laptops and tablets. Walk into any community venue on a social housing estate and it is most unlikely you will see anything similar. Many social housing tenants can live their lives isolated from the day-to-day use of the internet that others take for granted. This is why we ran the Our Digital Planet project which toured shopping areas in cities around the country and, by means of a giant photography exhibition, put uses of the internet in front of people’s faces. And it is why the HUGO Bus arrives in Leeds neighbourhoods with a (metaphorical) fanfare and broadcasts free wifi to the locality. We have to find ways of demonstrating the centrality of the internet to modern life to those who have not yet caught on to its importance.
Breaking down fear and suspicion
This is not just about allowing people to have fun online and talk to their distant relatives on Skype. It is not even solely about encouraging them to pay their rent via an app or use Universal Jobmatch to apply for employment. It is a much, much wider agenda than that. Great advances are in prospect to people’s wellbeing through the use of telehealth and telecare equipment which can help people be healthier for longer and to stay in their own homes rather than in hospitals or care homes. And smart meters and energy systems can greatly reduce people’s bills as well as contributing to the fight against climate change. But the use of such technology greatly depends on people’s acceptance of them. Many non-internet users are reluctant in the extreme to share any data, even anonymised data online. They have to be shown how to keep safe online, and that sharing data doesn’t bring the world crashing down around them. These are essential steps towards achieving acceptance that sharing the data which telehealth, telecare, and smart energy systems require is a good thing, not a social evil.
Making it stick
Far too many digital inclusion initiatives rely on short term interventions which are assumed to have done the trick. But this often leaves people high and dry with no support and seemingly little incentive to take their internet use further. People need to be supported long term to ensure they can continue and progress with their online activity. That’s why Digital Champions’ networks are essential. It takes time to develop a fluency with internet use, and that is something which is often missing from short term initiatives.
The good news is that there is growing recognition that these steps are vital to the long term financial health of social landlords, as well as to the wellbeing and prosperity of tenants. The bad news is that there are still far too many who are not taking actions in these directions, and time is running out to get it right.
If you’d like to talk about how I might help your organisation in these areas, please drop me a line at john.popham@johnpopham.com or tweet me @johnpopham
This is an idea I’ve been kicking around for a while, and I’ve had significant encouragement recently to take it forward, so, I’m about to launch a crowfunding campaign and sponsorship proposal for a Digital Inclusion Campervan.
The Story So Far
Our Digital Planet Internet Station in Bristol
If you’ve been paying attention (and, if not, why not?) you will have seen that I’ve been experimenting over recent years with different methods of taking digital inclusion to where people are, as I am a believer in seeking out people in their natural environments rather than expecting them to come to centres or courses. In 2012 and 2013 I managed Nominet Trust’s Our Digital Planet Project, which took a giant photographic exhibition on how people use the internet to various city centres around the country and backed it up with a shipping container full of volunteers and laptops. I learned so much from this project, and it was such a pleasure to work with so many people who wouldn’t have dreamed of searching out a digital inclusion “centre”
But, the thing about Our Digital Planet was that it was expensive. It took a lot of resources to move all that stuff around the country, and there came a point at which the numbers of local partners able to find the cash to bring it to their area just ran out. So, I then set about seeing if the same principle could be delivered in a more mobile form.
I was fortunate to bump into Sue Jennings from Leeds Federated Housing Association at a digital inclusion get together, and this led to a collaboration which became the HUGO Project, featuring the HUGO Bus (in reality there are two buses), bringing a more mobile facility to the housing estates of Leeds, and available for hire to go elsewhere.
But even the HUGO Bus has a significant cost to moving around, and there are some places where that size of vehicle cannot go, so I am still frustrated that there is more that can be done.
And so, I now want to downscale things a bit more still. I’ve already gone from Our Digital Planet which took 2 flatbed trucks to move it around, to the HUGO Bus which is pretty mobile, but bulky. Now I want to go to the Digital Inclusion Campervan. It will be a go anywhere, reach anyone, digital inclusion facility with free wifi, tea and coffee, kit and support.
I need to raise the money to make this happen, so I am seeking sponsorship, and maybe will go down the crowdfunding route too. Scouring eBay, I reckon I can acquire a semi-decent campervan for about £7500, and I will probably need another £5k or so to kit it out and put a livery on it. To cope for contingencies, I’ll be looking to raise £15000 in total.
So, any sponsors out there want to pitch in? Sponsors will get the opportunity to have their branding on the bus, promote their products through its work, and, well, you tell me what you’d want in return.
I am excited about this, but I need to test the water first as to whether there are sponsors interested.
Please get in touch if you’d like to support this project.
This is an idea for a project which I think could be an important model for assisting with older people’s fading memories, as well as exploring and raising the profile of British Seaside towns.
I am looking for £30,000 to make this happen. Please get in touch if you can help.
Is the British seaside holiday dead?
Is there anything from it worth preserving, beyond its impact on the local economies of some fairly Isolated towns?
How important are the memories from our seaside holidays? Individually and collectively?
Can seaside memories play a role in helping people with dementia?
Everybody remembers their holidays, don’t they? For many of us they are the stand out moment of a relatively mundane year. Do you remember those long, hot afternoons on the beach, or that time staring out to sea while the rain pounded down on the roof of the car? If we are lucky enough to have holidays, they linger in the mind; they provide punctuation points in the narrative of our lives, and we return to them in our daydreams. But, how long do we remember them? Do you still remember your childhood holidays?
This project has a threefold purpose.
To connect isolated older people with their holiday memories in an interactive, real-time basis in a way which both stimulates their memories, and sparks their interest in the potential of communications technologies;
To collect holiday stories linked with particular seaside locations;
To stimulate wider interest in seaside towns as visitor destinations.
How the project will work.
This will require participation from:
Charities and agencies working with older people;
Care homes and sheltered accommodation providers;
Individual older people and their relatives and carers;
Tourism and visitor offices for seaside towns;
Local authorities and local economic development agencies in seaside towns;
Digital agencies and the local digital community in seaside towns.
Phase 1
Gathering Memories
The first stage of the project will be to collect older people’s memories of seaside holidays. This will be achieved through:
Video interviews with older people;
Collecting and digitising old photographs of holiday locations from older people and from other locations;
Blog posts and online stories
Stories emailed and archived
This material will be collected directly, by older people themselves, by friends family and support workers and collated to an online hub.
Phase 2
Curation and Training
Phase 2 of the project will be to work with the older people to help them to organise the material which stimulates their memories, and to relate those memories to specific locations. At this stage, older people, their carers, support workers and staff will be trained to interact and engage with the project. Equipment will be provided and training to use it to enable the older people to engage in real-time with Phase 3. And the locations to be visited in Phase 3 of the project will be chosen.
Phase 3
Seaside Tour
Phase 3 will be based around a seaside tour. John Popham will visit seaside locations chosen by the older people in Phase 2 of the project. During the visits he will interact with the older people directly online, using live streaming, video conference connections, and otherwise, and be guided by them as to what to see, where to visit, and who to talk to. There will be live, real-time interactions between the places and people John visits and the older people who are guiding him. This will further stimulate the memories of the older people, and encourage them to explore using new technologies to communicate and pursue their interests.
As well as interacting with older people, John’s visits will be an opportunity to explore the condition of the British seaside holiday. Guided by the older people, he will investigate what has changed, and what has stayed the same between the memories described by the older people in the project and the modern reality. This will provide opportunities for interactions with local media, local politicians and local government. The visits to each location will be maximised for publicity potential, and for the opportunities to generate discussion and debate about the past, present and future of the British seaside.
Opportunities will also be explored to collect and collate more material, gathered in the seaside locations themselves, to add to the seaside holiday memory bank and online hub.
Phase 4
Curation, collation, evaluation and future planning.
I have been prompted into action by a piece on BBC Radio 5 Live this morning, about technology and social media aiding older people to overcome loneliness. Hurrah! I thought as I listened, finally this stuff is coming out in the open. You can hear the item below.
Every year there are stories about older people being isolated and lonely in their homes; and yet, every year there are advances in communications technologies which potentially offer cheaper and easier to use solutions (at least in part) to this problem. But there is no joining up.
What is the problem? I think society finds it really easy to hide behind its preconceptions and stereotypes about how older people would react to new technologies, and it uses this as an excuse to do nothing. And I think that technophobic professionals who project their own hangups onto the people they work with are a key barrier too. My own direct experience, through projects such as Our Digital Planet and Digital Tea Parties, suggests that, if approached in the right way, most older people will see the benefits of new technologies once exposed to them. So, let’s do away with the stereotypes and get on with breaking down loneliness. The lady featured in the Five Live report is a prime example of how this can work.
So, now I want to do something directly about this. I am announcing now that by November 2015 I intend to have a project in place that will connect people at Christmas. It will focus on bringing digital elements to Christmas parties in Care Homes, Sheltered Accommodation, Day Centres and elsewhere, with a view to leaving a legacy of older people who are skilled and resourced to connect with each other and their friends and relatives over Christmas and beyond.
So, I am looking for project funding, sponsorship, donations, and help-in-kind to connect up Christmas Parties in 2015. If you can provide:
funding
equipment (tablet computers, laptops, projectors, connected TV devices, etc.)
And it’s not too late to do something THIS Christmas. Let’s pilot this idea. If you are running a Christmas Party for older people, you’d like to collaborate on connecting it up, and you can find a few hundred pounds to make it happen, then, let’s do it in 2014!
Technology can break down so many barriers. Let’s shout this message to the world.
Our Digital Planet Internet Station in Bristol
John Popham's Random Musings 